Pistonlog ships with four working actors — Owner, Manager, Reception, Technician — plus an Accountant role that can only view financial reports, covering 99% of garages. If your operation needs something different, you can create custom roles with any combination of permissions.
When to create one
- A senior technician who needs to see unit costs (gets
parts.view_cost) - A diagnostics technician who needs to see customer phone numbers (gets
customers.viewin full) - An inspector who creates inspections but doesn't touch jobcards
(For an external bookkeeper, the built-in Accountant role already covers financial reports and nothing else.)
How to create one
Open Workshop Settings → Roles & Permissions
Under the People & Access section of Workshop Settings.
Click Create Role
Name the role (e.g. "Senior reception") and optionally add a description.
Tick permissions
The permission matrix is shown — see Permissions reference. Tick the ones this role should have.
Assign team members
From the team list, change anyone's role to your new custom one. They keep their existing access until you change them.
Things to remember
- Roles are per garage. A custom role created at Bristol doesn't exist at Bath until you create it there too.
- No "deny" — only "allow". Permissions are additive. If you want someone who can do everything except delete jobcards, just don't tick
jobcards.delete. - Owner bypasses everything. Custom roles never restrict the owner.
- Non-owners can't escalate. A non-owner editing a role can only grant permissions they hold themselves, and only the owner can grant role management or team management to a role.
Auditing
The team list shows each member's role at a glance. To see exactly which permissions a role grants, open the role card in Roles & Permissions — useful when "why can't they do X?" comes up. Every role and permission change is also recorded in an internal audit log.